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The conversation of a lifetimeStoryCorps, a renowned nonprofit organization celebrating the stories of everyday Americans, partnered with Iowa Public Radio to record interviews in Des Moines during September 2017 as part of its cross-country MobileBooth tour.Having collected more than 65,000 interviews from Americans in all 50 states, StoryCorps has gathered one of the largest single collection of human voices ever recorded. Find some of the edited conversations collected from Iowans on this page. 00000173-38e2-d855-adf7-bcef38620001

Father and Son Talk Faith, Identity, and the Turban

Courtesy of StoryCorps
Gurwinder and JJ Singh Kapur

Des Moines resident Gurwinder Singh Kapur moved to the United States in 1987 to study at the University of Kansas. Gurwinder had originally planned to return home to Singapore after finishing his degree, but he fell in love with America and decided to stay.

He still loves it here, despite the fact that things changed for him, his wife, and their son JJ after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. Gurwinder recently visited the StoryCorps booth in Des Moines to talk with JJ, now 17, about his decision to wear a turban as an article of his faith, as well as the impact of 9/11 on their family and the Sikh community. 

Story Corps is a national initiative to record and collect stories of everyday people.